Monday morning, I already had unfinished business waiting on me.
If you’ve followed along this week, you probably saw me talking about one of those reports at work that had me scratching my head. We’d done the work. I had numbers showing we’d done the work. Then the official report came along basically saying, “Nope.”
Well alrighty then. 😂
So I did what I could do. I checked my numbers, got on Live Chat with store support, explained what was happening and made sure I got myself a ticket number because there are certain moments in management when “but I promise we did it” isn’t quite the documentation you want hanging over your head.
They escalated it.
And then I had to keep working.
That’s the irritating thing about unfinished business. It doesn’t always have the courtesy to finish itself before the next thing starts.
By Thursday, I was getting a pretty good demonstration of that.
My commercial manager is on vacation, which means I’ve been helping run what I lovingly refer to as both boxes. If you’ve never experienced one of my whole-box days, just picture somebody hollering your name from opposite ends of the building while the phone rings and you’re trying to remember whether you’ve eaten anything besides coffee. 😂
Thursday was also Mama’s birthday.
Thank goodness Bubba and I had gone to celebrate with her the day before because I didn’t even get to call her until about 5:30 that afternoon. My eggs and rice didn’t happen until 3.
And supper?
Bubba ordered pizza.
There are days when supper is lovingly prepared.
There are days when supper is leftovers.
And there are days when the most loving thing anybody in the house can say is, “I ordered pizza.”
I wasn’t about to argue with that man. 😂
Friday morning brought another whole-box kind of day, except this time something else happened.
One of the managers I recently hired was scheduled off. Actually, it was her second scheduled day off. I had deliveries going in two directions and not enough eligible people on deck to drive them.
She offered to come help.
She met me there at 7:30 that morning.
I’ve thanked God more than once since the day she walked through that door and asked whether we were hiring. Friday morning was another one of those times.
Her showing up didn’t magically clear everything off my plate. There was still work to do. There were still customers coming through the door. There were still things waiting for somebody to handle them.
But there was help.
And sometimes help doesn’t make everything disappear.
Sometimes it just makes the next thing possible.
By Friday night, life handed me one more reminder that there are things we simply cannot wrap up neatly before bedtime.
I got a family phone call that had my heart somewhere other than where the rest of me was.
There wasn’t anything I could fix from where I stood.
I could care.
I could pray.
I could wait.
And I could trust the people who were there to handle what needed handling.
I don’t particularly enjoy that last one.
I’m much better at finding the next thing to do. Give me a problem and I’ll start looking for a process, a person, a phone number, a ticket number or somebody who knows somebody. 😂
But some things don’t come with a checkbox.
Some things remain unfinished when you go to bed.
And somewhere during this week, I started noticing how many times that happened.
The report was still being investigated.
There was work I didn’t finish.
There was a birthday phone call that happened much later than I wanted.
There were meals that didn’t happen according to plan.
There were people I cared about facing things I couldn’t fix for them.
And still…
Mama had already been celebrated.
Bubba handled supper.
A manager gave up part of her day off to help.
Customers got served.
The work moved forward.
People showed up for one another.
Life kept going.
Maybe that’s the part I’ve had trouble remembering.
An unfinished thing isn’t always a failed thing.
Sometimes it is simply not finished yet.
There’s a mighty big difference.
I’ve spent enough years in kitchens, workplaces and family life to know we can wear ourselves slap out trying to get everything tied into a pretty little bow before we let ourselves sit down.
But real life rarely cooperates with that plan.
Sometimes there are dishes in the sink when you go to bed.
Sometimes supper comes in a pizza box.
Sometimes tomorrow’s list already has yesterday’s problem written at the top.
Sometimes somebody you love needs help you can’t personally provide.
None of that automatically means today went wrong.
It might just mean today reached the end of the amount you could reasonably carry.
That’s one reason my Chaos to Cozy Kitchen System™ has never really been about getting everything perfectly finished. It’s about finding the next useful thing that makes real life a little easier ~ and sometimes that means recognizing what can safely wait.
Because cozy doesn’t require everything to be done.
Sometimes cozy is finally sitting down while something isn’t.
A Little Room for Tomorrow
Maybe you’ve got something unfinished too.
A basket of laundry that never made it upstairs. A refrigerator shelf you’ve been meaning to clean. A phone call you haven’t made. Something at work waiting on somebody else’s answer. A supper plan that turned into sandwiches.
Before you decide you’re behind, ask yourself one question:
Does this actually need me tonight?
If the answer is yes, handle the next useful piece.
If the answer is no, maybe you’ve just discovered something tomorrow can carry.
That’s not giving up.
That’s leaving a little room for being human.
Off the Apron
If your unfinished thing happens to be sitting in the kitchen staring back at you, come visit The Porch at Your Bowl Connection.
It’s there to help you figure out where to go next ~ whether you need a little supper help, want to sit down at the Chowline kitchen table, need a practical kitchen tool or simply aren’t sure which room has what you’re looking for.
You don’t have to know exactly what you need before you come in.
That’s rather the point of having a porch. There’s a chair while we figure it out. ☕️
From the Porch
Before you turn out the kitchen light tonight, look around once.
Not for everything you didn’t get done.
Look for what did get carried today.
Maybe you handled it.
Maybe somebody helped you.
Maybe it got moved to tomorrow.
Maybe life simply kept going around it.
Then leave tomorrow something to do.
It was coming anyway. 😂
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